NEA Mission Statement

Since its creation in 1857, The National Education Association has become the largest labor union in the United States with just less than three million members. The NEA represents public school teachers, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students looking to pursue the field of education. Their mission statement is as follows; “Our mission is to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.”[1] In the mid 1800s, widespread education reform led to the development of the public school system and professional training for teachers. Despite these advancements

During the 2012-2013 fiscal year, the NEA had a budget of $341 million. [3] The NEA ranks number four in the total contributions from an organization, close to $94 million and 97% of that was used to fund Democratic Party members. [4] This shows the great extent to which they want to influence policy and who will help aid them in that pursuit. Their very obvious alliance with the Democratic Party and liberal ideals are directly linked to the Truman administration’s embrace of the NEA’s political goals which brought them much closer than ever before to the left-wing politicians (and stayed that way ever since). [5] In fact, they’ve never backed a non-democratic presidential nominee from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama [6], and are currently backing Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. The NEA advocates grassroots lobbying techniques in their “Ten Golden Rules of Lobbying” with rule number one being “Help your legislator understand why your position is important to his or her constituents. Fight where the legislator lives through grassroots organizations at home.”[7] It’s easy to see why they’d use this method over direct lobbying when you consider the sheer size of their organization and amount of influence they have. They don’t have to hire one voice to speak to a legislator on their behalf when their voice is as loud as almost million